life in love

Food Friday – Japanese mochi

Its Friday, which means its time for good food! Since my last, one and only Japanese mochi has gotten mouldy, I was soooooo sad so I decided to talk about my love for Japanese mochi:) I LOVE to eat Japanese mochi. The last one I had was from Okinawa, Japan. There’s literally so many variations of mochi, like kusa mochi, yomogi daifuku… you can never get bored with it. If you don’t know what mochi is, it is made from glutinous rice flour, with a sweet filling and usually in a circular shape.

So these are the ones that I got from Japan. The one that went mouldy was the middle one. Luckily, I ate the others in time, just that one got mouldy:/ I got a daifuku (the top left one) and a warabimochi(bottom right) as well.

I’m not sure about this but I think one of the more traditional mochi are made from mugwort leaves, which gives it a nice green colour. Mugwort have quite a distinct taste to it, like other herbs and leaves but as its quite subtle, it doesn’t come out too strong. They are usually stuffed with red bean paste or like the one in the picture, skewered and with the red bean paste on the side.

This is a sakura mochi, which I think just looks amazing!! I love the pink shade of it. It is made from glutinous rice with a red bean filling, wrapped with a pickled sakura leaf. I don’t think I’ve tried this one as this is not as easily found as the others but I would love to try this someday!

I love how the Japanese like to skewer their mochi on a wooden stick! It makes them look so much more adorable. The one on the right(one of my favourites) is made from plain glutinous rice flour with a sweet, black sugar syrup poured over it. While the one on the left is quite common in japan, with a sakura, plain and mugwort infused glutinous rice balls skewerd together.

And good quality mochi certainly requires intense work to create such chewy and soft texture and there’s really nothing alike. Look at that skill!! If he was a second slower, his hands would be smashed.

There is a mochi shop in Seoul as well which is popular for its massive strawberry mochi. You’ll feel so satisfied after eating it as there’s this huge strawberry coated with a layer of red bean paste and wrapped with mochi!! I’m in heaven, it tastes sooo good.

I must also talk about mochi ice creams!!! This is probably more well-known around the world as who doesn’t like ice cream? There’s this shop in Japan called Mochi Cream which serves a variety of flavours of mochi ice creams!! I had such a hard time to choose a flavour from all the options!! Although there are a lot of recipes on mochi ice cream out there, I still think its very hard to make one that tastes as good as the ones offered in shops.

Last but not least, warabimochi!! It technically isn’t a mochi. It is a jelly-like mochi that is not as chewy. The texture is like jelly cross-over mochi(I don’t really know how to describe it). It is usually coated with green tea powder or kinako(roasted soy bean flour) and paired with black sugar syrup.

I want mochi right now!!!! If you haven’t try this before, you MUST give it a try, its like nothing you have tasted before!!